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The League/Volume 4: Chapter 2
Ghost It must have been a good thirty minutes as I went exploring. The ruins looked similar to Twdtown, but they were just that; ruins. I continued on down the road, trying to find a place that would give me a signal. I remembered the green portal I fell through. Did I time travel? Was this the future? “Bloxx? Caulk? Cam? Any of you read me?” I said into my comm. Still nothing, and it looked like nothing was changing. I sighed, realizing that I should conserve my suit’s energy. “…Ghost…” I heard a voice that felt somewhat recognizable. The voice didn’t feel like it came through my comm or on this plane, even. “Hello?!” I said, urgently. “…disappeared from our world, but I…still sense…” The voice faded again. It sounded like Katie Shiva. We’d been training together for the past three days, but this was beyond what we’d worked on. Suddenly, a large bolt of plasma shot into my black armored chest, slamming me into a wall. I slowly looked up to see another bolt coming straight at me. I jetted out of the way quickly. “Unidentified cybernetic being. Terminate,” a robotic voice screeched. I quickly leapt behind some rubble and silenced myself. A humanoid, grey, smooth-layered cyborg with one eye and no face walked through the streets, scanning for me. “Katie...what do I do?” I said to myself after I muted my exterior mic. “…fight…” the static allowed me that. And fight I did. No time like the present. I extended my claws and slowly stalked my machine attacker. When the distance was right, I leapt out and clawed through the robot’s head area. It fell to the ground, lifeless. I crouched down in front of it, observing its parts. The technology was completely alien to me, advanced beyond my own. Before I had the chance to look any further, another blast came at me. “Unidentified,” the robot said. I took it out with a single claw launched into its head, but when it went down, six more came. Somehow, they magnetized me to the ground and began trying to peel off my armor. “Agh, fuck!” BLAM! In the blink of an eye, one of the robots were torn perfectly in half. One half was used to hit the robot screwing around with my leg into a nearby wall, shattering it, and the other half was used to pull the head off of the robot attacking my arm. With a crunch, a bearded blonde man wearing heavy armor smashed the robot’s head like nothing. The magnetic force pulling me, and I slowly sat up, looking towards the man. He instantly aimed his rifle at me. “Hands up.” the man said. I did as he said. My armor was bulletproof, but if robots were able to start messing with my armor, perhaps a human could, too. As I observed him, I began to realize who he was. The legendary bounty hunter MercilessFighter. We’d worked together on a few cases, and he was…well, merciless. “Merciless? It’s me, Ghost. From the League,” I said. “Ghost? Good joke. Now tell me who you really are and how you know my name,” he said, readying his gun. “Christ man, I’m Ghost! What do you think I am, a Slimey?!” I shouted. Merciless cocked his gun in my face. “Stand up, hands up. You’re coming with me.” I sighed, nodding my head. Something strange was going on here, and maybe he could get me to the bottom of it. --- Merciless led me deeper and deeper into the ruins of the town. I saw the rotting corpses of humans, the remains of robots, and the remnants of a city once great. He pressed a button on a strap he kept around his arm, and rubble was pushed aside to make way for a hidden walkway. He pushed me down the steps and jumped onto my back before closing it. It didn’t hurt, but I knew he was being merciless. We continued walk for a long ways as walkway closed behind us. Suddenly, overhead lights came on, revealing a long, dark warehouse-like area with several doors in each direction. Young men and women came from several areas. One of the ragged soldiers walked up to him. “Welcome back, Mercil-” she started to say, but she noticed me and became silent when she saw me. “Later. I need to talk to lock this one up.” He marched past her and took me to the door at the side of the building. The door opened, and Merciless shoved me inside a room with heavy bars, slamming it shut. As soon as the door shut, I felt the pressure of the magnets pulling me against the back wall. I couldn’t move. Merciless spoke into his communication device, “Liz, you should come to the containment cells to see this.” “You can trust me,” I said. “Shut up.” I expected nothing less from Merciless. As we stood in silence, the main door opened once again, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. Standing on the other side of the cell was Kaley. “Merciless, what’s going on. Who is this?” She asked. “…Kaley?” I said to myself. Kaley stopped in her tracks, shocked. “What did you just call me?!” she barked. “Don’t talk unless she asks, fuckface.” “Wait. I can show you.” HELMET, RETRACT. PASSCODE: 69420. After the metal had left my head, I felt naked, but I could tell she realized who I was. “Ghost? I…it can’t be…” she said, holding her forehead with her hands. “It’s me. Ghost. Brent. From the League…and I-I have no idea what’s going on here. I just woke up here after being sucked into some...I don’t know, a portal? I don’t know where any of the others are. We were just in a meeting and Cam started yelling ‘cause he was being Angr-” “The League? I have no idea what that is…all I know is that…we saw you and Cam die in the Battle of Twdtown.” “Battle of Twdtown? With The Dragon Demands? Where’s Tombo? Or Pig, or Bloxx, or Caulk, or...or even Dom? Is he alive here?” “The Dragon Demands? …He died to the machines too, well before the battle. All of them did.” Merciless stopped the conversation short. “Enough. Prove to us you’re not a robot. That this isn’t some trick from the robots. Get out of that armor.” “I…I can’t, not completely,” I said, “but if you turn off the magnet, I can show you I’m still human.” Merciless frowned, looking at Kaley. She slightly nodded, and Merciless pressed a button on his wrist. The magnets slightly released me, but I still couldn’t move very far forward. I retracted my armor as much as I could to reveal my wounded and damaged torso. I walked towards Kaley. “Feel my heartbeat.” Kaley lifted her hand up, through the bars, and pressed it on my chest. When she felt the pulse of life, I could see that she was both relieved and more confused than before. “Merciless. It’s okay. He’s real. I…I don’t know how, but he’s the real thing.” Merciless stepped back, still clearly wary. “Sorry, Liz, but your judgment might be clouded. He’s staying in here.” I looked to Merciless, narrowing my eyes. “I’m human, damn it. What do I have to say?” Kaley sighed, nodding her head. “Y…you’re right,” she said. “This is crazy. I don’t even know how you…how you know my middle name, Ghost. Nobody here but my husband Merciless knows it. You call me Elizabeth from now on.” “In my…where I come from, we call you Kaley, and you’re the mayor.” “Really now? How about you tell us everything first. Where - and when exactly is it that you came from exactly,” Merciless said, still suspicious. “Twdtown, 2014,” I said as I slid my armor back together. “My team, The League defends Twdtown. You fund us, and Juan is the chief of police.” “Juan…the chief of police?” I could tell that the mention of Juan made her sad. Some horrible memory was terrorizing her. “Who did this to the city? What happened, Ka-Elizabeth?” I asked. Elizabeth sighed, leaning back against the wall and stroked the flesh between her eyes. I slightly smirked at that - it seemed that some things carried through from the woman back home I knew. “Long story short - a team of engineers and programmers were trying to make an army to protect us from some threats…and it went very wrong. They took over and expanded. Everyone who survived banded together and formed a resistance. We don’t even know where their center of operations is.” “Damn,” I said finally. “So…Ghost, tell me. What happened to you? Why are you like this?” I sighed and leaned back against the wall, saving my energy. “Like I said, I was a member of the League. We dealt with threats like these engineers tried to. We didn’t deal with minor problems the way we should have, so a large group of bad guys met up and attacked the city. We were deployed and we fought. But somehow, many members were harmed in one way or another. “I went up against this one bitch who grabbed my and…and broke my back. She destroyed me, and it didn’t even take all of her power to do it. I would have died if one of my teammates hadn’t built this suit for me. My spine’s still broken but it allows me to move around. I hate it, but I will never take it off. “Have you ever been forced to literally live with something that you hate? That disgusts you? I want to scream and tear this black hell off of my body, but then what will I be without it?” Elizabeth looked on at me with concern. “A cripple,” I finished bitterly. Merciless frowned. “That’s quite the sob story. Why don’t you stay here and think about all of that. Liz, we have some things to discuss.” With that, he pressed down on the button, and the magnet pulled me to the wall. He turned to the door and walked out of the cell room. Elizabeth said nothing, turning and leaving with her apparent husband. I was alone again, with that fresh bitter taste in my mouth. Maybe Merciless was right, and I was just a mach- “Merciless was right. Your sob story is something else. I thought we were past that.” Out of nowhere, standing in front of me was what appeared to be Katie Shiva. “Astral projection. It’s something we were going to cover in our training, until whatever happened.” “Katie!” I exclaimed. “Do you know what happened to the others?!” “No, just what happened to you. It seems you were sucked from one universe into a different and parallel one. I suppose it’s safe to assume the same fate has befallen your teammates.” “Damn.” Katie put her hands on her hips. “So, are you just going to sit around and wait for them to decide your fate or will you take control of it?” “Katie…I doubt Kaley would do anything to me,” I said, still amazed that I was actually seeing Katie. “Perhaps Kaley would not. This ‘Elizabeth’, coupled with Merciless and the dire straits of their situation? Do not count it out. I cannot help you fight, but do what you must to get out of here and get some answers.” “Okay then.” I ignited my burning claws and began slowly creating a vibration that got heavier and heavier. After a while, I felt it begin to give way. The magnetic device would be right behind it, and… I activated my heat claws and turned into it as the wall broke, revealing a massive magnetic device. I clawed through it instantly, shutting it down. And with that, I went to go investigate. Trivia *First appearance of Alternate Merciless. *First appearance of Alternate Elizabeth. Category:The League